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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

The Challenge of Hope - November 14, 2010

November 14, 2010

Romans 8:18-25

Meet the Challenge:The Disciple’s Way

The Challenge of Hope

What are the essentials of life?What is absolutely necessary for people to live?Food, water, shelter, clothing – there are some very tangible items needed to sustain life, but there are some intangibles as well.One of those is hope.

This morning we come to the next to the last message in this series – The Challenge of Hope.Having hope is not easy these days.Political campaigns promise hope but fewer and fewer people seem to have hope.In 1999, 85% of Americans said they were hopeful about their own future and 68% said they were hopeful for the future of the world.A year ago only 69% were hopeful for their own future and only 51% were hopeful about the future of the world (from a CNN opinion poll).It’s probably dropped even more since then.

There is a trinity of values in the Christian faith – as Paul describes them in I Corinthians 13, they are faith, hope, and love, none of which we can live without.

Hope, we must note, is much more than wishful thinking.We might say I hope the Steelers win the Super Bowl this year.I hope UK wins the NCAA this year.I hope UofL doesn’t win anything this year.

Hope is an affirmation of belief in God’s promise of the future.

It is the belief in that promise that compels people to continue to move forward.The Hebrew people had the hope of the Promised Land.For centuries they endured slavery in Egypt, but they had hope in the promise of the future that one day they would not only have freedom but a home as well.That hope is what enabled them to endure through the many years of struggle and despair.

Job, a towering figure when it comes to hope, clung to the hope that God was with him and had not turned against him.I read several passages daily and one of them is Job 13:15, which says though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.Nothing could cause Job to lose hope, not even his friends who came to him and encouraged him to give up.They saw no reason for hope, but Job did.

The early church had hope for a future free of persecution.As the mighty Roman Empire put many to death in horrific ways – as fodder for the animals and the gladiators in the Coliseum, as human torches lighting Nero’s gardens at night, and in countless other types of persecution – instead of losing hope their hope grew and with it grew the church.

When Paul writes of hope he is writing from very deep experience.It’s not an academic treatise; it’s real life.Paul suffered in so many ways – he was arrested and beaten (II Corinthians 11:13-29), people sought to kill him, and he was eventually executed – this was a guy who really understood hope.In the midst of his greatest trial – awaiting execution – he writes the letter to the Philippians and they are beautiful words; they are words of hope.

Hope is what allows one to look at the terrible circumstances of the world and say things can be better.

Hope is what allows us to face our struggles, to look them straight in the eye, and say I can do this; this is possible; the Spirit of God will provide the strength to endure and His promise of a better future is true.

Victor Fankel learned that hope.He was a prisoner in a concentration camp, and at the entrance a sign bore the words abandon all hope ye who enter here, which is Dante’s inscription on the entrance of Hell.He lost everything.Every possession was taken from him, and he suffered from cold, hunger, brutality, and the constant fear of death.While in the camp he lost his father, mother, brother, and his wife.

He later wrote of one of his darkest moments.He was digging in a cold, icy trench, and at that moment felt the hopelessness of imminent death, I sensed my spirit piercing through the enveloping gloom.I felt it transcend that hopeless, meaningless world, and from somewhere I heard a victorious “yes” in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate purpose.

At that moment a light was lit in a distant farmhouse, and upon seeing that light, hope was kindled in him, and his words at that moment were et lux in tenebris lucent – and the light shineth in the darkness.John 1:5 says the light shines in the darkness.We read that verse last week in our Scripture reading.

Hope is the light that shines in the darkness of life.It is a light that illumines this life.

Christians have been accused over the years of concentrating so much on eternal life that the problems of this life are overlooked.But genuine hope never forgets this world.In fact, C. S. Lewis says that it is when Christians have most thought of the next world that they have worked to improve this world.

(Mere Christianity, p. 118)

Proper hope, then, becomes something that moves us to make a difference in this world and in this life.

Hope changes things in this life.Proper hope does not ask people to simply endure this life while they are awaiting the next.A hope that sees something beyond this life sees how things should be, and when we see how things should be we work to make them that way.That’s why most of the great social movements in history have come out of the church; because the church saw how things could be and should be, and they worked to make it so.

Hope, then, makes all the difference.One of my favorite stories of hope is the story behind the great hymn It Is Well With My Soul.The hymn was written by Horatio Spafford, who was a lawyer in Chicago in the mid 1860s.He had a very successful career, but in 1870 a series of tragedies befell the family, beginning with the death of their four-year-old son from Scarlet Fever.A year later almost all of the Spafford’s real estate holdings were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire, causing Spafford to lose his life savings.

In 1873 his family planned a trip to England, but at the last minute Spafford was called back to Chicago on business.He sent his wife and four daughters on to England, anxious to see them enjoy a trip to take their mind off their tragedies.But tragedy struck on the trip, as their ship collided with another, and sunk in only twelve minutes.Spafford’s wife survived but their four daughters perished.

Spafford took the first ship out of New York to meet his wife, and during the voyage the ship’s captain called Spafford to the bridge.The captain explained they were passing the spot where his daughters had perished.Spafford returned to his cabin and wrote the hymn, which included these words – when peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll.Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, it is well, it is well, with my soul.

When hope exists, people can survive even the most desperate of circumstances.As Emily Dickinson writes in her poem Hope,